In reply to Carless:
No, not cover to cover, just bits and pieces back when I grew up as a Christian. If you don´t take it as a literal account of creation and human history, but instead read it with secondary literature that puts it in context it will provide a fascinating account of how philosophical thought evolved over a couple thousand of years, and still influences us today (for better or for worse).
I recently read a book that is apparently not available in English that puts forward a new argument about who Homer (the author of the Ilias) really was, and which sources influenced his epos (Raoul Schrott, Homers Heimat). The interesting idea was that Homer was a professional scribe employed in a regional administration in Kilikia under the Assyrian emperor Assurbanipal II. The arguments that I have to accept (as I am a biologist not a linguist) include that Homer wrote Greek using Assyrian turns of phrase and even grammar using a derived Phoenician alphabet. Also, all places described can be fit one to one to the region of modern Alanya in southeast Turkey.
What I found extremely fascinating was that again and again the author juxtaposed accounts of same events from Greek, Egyptian, and Assyrian sources with the accounts of the old testament (prophets and the historic books like Kings, mainly). In many cases the reports were interwoven with metaphysical/religious interpretation, and it is fascinating to see how this changes depending on the viewpoint. Even looking at the old testament in isolation you can see how "gods are everwhere, ours is one of many" evolves into "our local deity is best", to "our local god is the only truly existing one". Even if I believe gods are a figment of our imagination, the history of the idea as such is fascinating.
CB
PS: The Ilias should also be mandatory!